Every morning I try to unlearn the universe.
It is like a yoga exercise to escape the irons of knowledge.
In 63 years your head fills with so much *******.
There must be a method for purging the excess.
So far I have not been able to discover it.
I will keep trying because I want to see things fresh.
I want to hear babies cry and Mozart exhalt for the first time.
I want to enter a woman anew like a baffled 15-year-old
discovering a pleasure from which he will never want to escape.
I want to forget my over-remembered  life.
I want to rediscover the salty taste of women.
I have been everywhere and am out of destinations.
I ache for the pain of a question lacking an answer.
I want to go to war again and relearn a sense of terror.
I want to experience the baffled euphoria of first love.
I want to reclaim my sense of wonder from jaded life.
Imagine the utter joy of hearing again birds for the first time.
Unlearning is so much harder than learning.
I fear not enough years remain to unknow this burden.
But I must keep at it with a vigor no longer possessed.
It is morning again in the heart of Mike Essig.
And every morning I try to unlearn the universe
simply so I might know the bliss of learning it again.

Do you think about me every day?
Am I always on your mind?
Each night do you kneel and pray
For one day me to find?
Do you wonder if I look like you,
Have your personality?
If I like the same things you do?
Or if we differ completely?

Do you search for me in others faces
Certain that you will know me?
Do you love going to new places
Hoping there is where I will be?
Do you constantly worry about me?
Wonder how my life has been?
Does your heart ache longingly
For a life that might have been?

Do you worry that you may never
get the opportunity to know me?
That we should be apart forever?
That my face you may never see?
Do you have difficulty coping?
Have a yearning that never goes away?
Do you never give up hoping
That we will find each other someday?

Do you feel a painful gaping void?
That you are somehow incomplete?
Do you feel a longing deep inside
For the day we eventually meet?
Do you question why we had to part?  
Worry I may have forgotten you?
I hope the answer is yes with all my heart
For these are all the things I do.

I drove past your house yesterday
and wondered if you still remember
how I look,
sound,
feel.
Foolish, I know.
It's so beautifully arrogant though,
how you still demand to be felt.

Hello me,

I'm you. I'm the older you after multiple suicide attempts, and lost in a haze of ***** and drugs.  I am also you who sought and searched for some meaning and belonging, only to find hypocrisy and pain.  But all that aside, I wanted to thank you for not giving up on life even though you wanted to.  Finally asking for help when you did, even though a part of you didn't care anymore.  Thank you for letting hope grow in you one day at a time.  Thank you for letting me love you, so I can love me today.  Life is pretty amazing today, and we would have missed out on this beautiful journey because we were so locked in our pain. Now, you and I can share our story of pain and suffering to help someone else.  We don't have to stay in a hopeless state of mind and body.  Thank you for having the courage to surrender and admit you couldn't do it alone anymore.  I love you very much.

Love,

I'm You